This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Canada eyes top 10 in medals for 2012

BEIJING–Canada's strong second half at these Games has a top Canadian Olympic Committee official talking about a top-10 finish in 2012.

COC chief operating officer Chris Rudge told the Star yesterday it may be time for Canadians to aim higher.

"Quite frankly, the way we're going right now we're going to have to reassess what our goals and objectives are for London 2012, because there's a good chance we could achieve our London objective here," he said. "Our objective for London was top 12, but I think we're sitting (near that) right now in overall medals."

Despite Adam van Koeverden's disappointing effort in the men's 1,000-metre kayak race yesterday, Canada picked up two more medals to reach 17 for the Beijing Games – three gold, eight silver and six bronze. Karine Sergerie won a silver in taekwondo, while Thomas Hall captured a bronze medal in the C-1 1,000-metre canoe race.

The IOC bases its medal standings on number of gold medals. On that basis, Canada finished Day 14 of the Games in 17th position. But if you use the COC's yardstick, Canada's medal haul of 17 was good for 13th.

Canadians won 14 medals in Sydney in 2000 but just 12 in Athens four years ago, prompting a national outcry.

Ottawa earlier this year boosted the COC's funding for high-performance sport by $8 million this year and $16 million for next.

Rudge likes to think of the Olympic medal totals as something of a stock market, where an investor doesn't get too high when the money's good or too low when the prices slip.

But he admits a lot of good things have happened at the Beijing Games despite not winning a medal in the first seven days of competition.

"A lot of good things attitudinally are happening here, too," he said. "I don't know if everybody feels this way, but I'm watching events and I'm saying: `Whoa, we just missed the gold.' Where we used to say: `Darn it, we're fourth, we missed getting a medal.' Now we're starting to think gold."

While the next medal will allow Canada to equal the Barcelona mark of 18, that's still below the 22 medals won in Atlanta in 1996. (Improving on Barcelona is quite possible, although reaching the total they had in 1996 appears unlikely.) There were only 257 events in Barcelona in 1992 while there are 302 in Beijing.

However you measure it, the 17 medals thus far is considerably higher than the past two Summer Olympics, and it's bang-on with the COC's pre-Games forecast that Canadians would win upward of 19 medals in China.

For what it's worth, our athletes have surpassed Sports Illustrated's prediction of 14 Canadian medals.

Rudge said he doesn't want to focus purely on medals, but on how Canadian athletes are developing over the long term.

"I don't want to be like the Toronto Maple Leafs, where every time they have a bad year they just shuffle the deck a little bit and hope they get dealt some good cards the next year.

"We're not doing that. We have a vision of where we want to go and we're going to continue to build on that."

The COC will hold a final press conference here on the final day of the Olympics to go over the successes and failures of the Games.

Rudge said he doesn't have the numbers yet, but one factor that will be discussed is the higher medal conversion rate for athletes considered to be potential medallists.

Before each Olympics, the COC looks at the number of athletes who have a reasonable chance of winning a medal, then compare that to how many actually won. Only about 20 per cent of the would-be medalists stepped on to a podium in Athens. It was closer to 40 per cent at the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006, and Rudge said it should be higher than that this time around. He suggested a lot of that is because of the extra government money flowing to high performance sport.

"We didn't have a lot of extra money this time, so Alex Baumann and the Road to Excellence program used it where they thought it would have the biggest impact," Rudge said. "One thing we worked on was a high-tech environmental box for our triathletes to train in. Over the last year, they've been able to go in and simulate the environment they'd be in for their next race, like Mexico or what have you.

"I think some of the athletes were skeptical, but they started to get some pretty good results. One of the early believers was Simon (Whitfield, who won a silver medal earlier this week in the triathlon)."

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com